1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a facsimile apparatus and, more particularly, to a facsimile apparatus for communicating with data processing equipment by AT command.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional facsimile apparatus such as that disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 7-250199 has a RS232C interface and is connected to a personal computer through the RS232C interface. The personal computer has a communications software application for facsimile transmission and reception. The facsimile application uses an AT command and controls a modem of the facsimile apparatus to communicate with a remote terminal by AT command.
The facsimile application is delivered by software companies and the user or manufacturer of the personal computer installs it into their personal computer. Accordingly, it is difficult, if not impossible for the software companies to know the performance specifications of the facsimile apparatus that will be used in conjunction with their facsimile application, before they launch their products.
Accordingly, the software companies must produce their products for general purpose use. For this reason, their products arc equipped with the group 3 standard recommended by ITU-T, but do not completely support non-standard functions.
For the reasons mentioned above, the personal computer generally communicates with the remote terminal by group 3 standard procedure.
If the facsimile apparatus has sufficient memory, it is possible to communicate with the remote terminal by non-standard procedure because the devices are able to communicate independently of the function of the facsimile application.
In this case, the facsimile apparatus stores the data received from the remote terminal in the memory and transmits the stored data to the personal computer after the end of the communication with the remote terminal, by AT command based on group 3 standard procedure.
However, when the facsimile apparatus communicates with the remote terminal by non-standard procedure, there is a possibility of losing some data when the facsimile apparatus transmits the stored data to the personal computer.
For example, the group 3 standard defines the numeral [0xcx9c9], space, and plus sign for the TSI (Transmitting Station Identification) signal. However, in most cases, an alphabet character is often used in the TSI signal under non-standard procedure. In addition, each facsimile manufacturer has their own character code system for the TSI signal. So, when the alphabet character is used for the TSI signal in communication between the facsimile apparatus and remote terminal, when the information is then transmitted from the facsimile apparatus to the facsimile application in the PC, there is a possibility that the facsimile application will not recognize it correctly.
Accordingly, some data will not be recognized correctly at the personal computer because the AT command does not support the non-standard procedure completely.
The present invention has an object to overcome the above and other problems encountered in the aforementioned art.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a facsimile apparatus capable of reducing uncertainty of communication with a data processing equipment.
The above mentioned objects of the present invention are achieved by a facsimile apparatus connected to a data processing equipment having a facsimile application including, a communication control unit having a modem for communicating to a remote terminal by communication line, a memory for storing data received from the remote terminal, an interface device connected to the data processing equipment for converting input and output signals to communicate to the data processing equipment, a controller for communicating with the data processing equipment by AT command and converting the stored data, wherein the controller sends the data to the data processing equipment through the interface device by AT command after converting the stored data.